7-Time Italian prime minister Giulio Andreotti dies

Rome, May 6 (EFE).- Sen. Giulio Andreotti, a seven-time prime minister who was a dominant figure in Italian politics for decades, died Monday at his home in this capital, local media reported. He was 94.

The former Christian Democratic Party leader had been retired from public life for some months and had not been back to Parliament either to vote in the presidential election or for the investiture of the new government.

In April 2012, Andreotti received treatment at the Gemelli Hospital in Rome for 13 days for severe cardiac difficulties caused by a respiratory infection.

Once the initial crisis was past and he had been stabilized, he joked about learning that Wikipedia had reported him to have died, saying that that "lengthened my life."

Andreotti was accused of collaborating with the Cosa Nostra regarding the death of Mino Pecorelli in 1979.

The Italian courts acquitted him in 2004 of any Mafia ties after a grueling trial in which one witness said that Andreotti kissed the cheek of Cosa Nostra chief Salvatore "Toto" Riina.

Andreotti takes to the grave some of Italy's most important state secrets.

"I know some state secrets, but I will take them with me to Paradise. I never liked the political show," he confessed in one of his last interviews given to the daily La Repubblica.